School board member searchers for 'rubber room'

A Santa Fe School Board member is investigating whether there’s a so-called “rubber room” in the district.

School board member Glenn Wilke even went so far as to go to a district building unannounced to see if he could find the room. School officials said the existence of such a room is absolutely not true.

The term “rubber room” comes from an incident in New York City when hundreds of teachers accused of misconduct were made to sit all day in rooms while their cases were under investigation. Santa Fe school officials said such a practice would never be the case here.

“Those rumors are absolutely false,” said Latifah Phillips, the superintendent’s chief of staff. “It is a very provocative term that is used to describe a very negative situation.”

School Board President Frank Montano said it is against school policy for board members to conduct their own private investigations. That, along with other code and legal violations, is why the other board members decided to censure Wilke. That is basically a public way of disapproving of his actions.

Censuring school board members is very rare. School officials say it only happens a few times throughout the country every year.

“This is a very serious matter and if people understood the details of what he did, they would fire him,” Montano said.

Montano said he can’t elaborate on what those details are because that would violate confidentiality restrictions.

Wilke has been a board member since 2011. He didn’t return Action 7 News calls or emails. When we went to his office, he refused to speak with us.

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